There's more than meet the eyes in Madura

Madura Island

Madura Maduratna

Madura, an Island on the north of eastern Java that connected to Surabaya City by the Suramadu Bridge. The Suramadu Bridge is considered as the longest bridge ever built in Indonesia, it's stretched for about 5.4 km long with two huge pillars at the center of the bridge crossing the Madura Strait. Madura is 5.168 km2 wide that stretched 180 km long from the west to the east and around 40 km width from the north to south.

If I am talking about Madura, it reminds me of a lot of thing. Mostly negative though, but this is only stereotype given to the Madurese people. They say that the Madurese people are bad people. Wherever we find Madurese, trouble will come. It is true that Madurese have commonly high tempered, that they like to cheat other people in many things, but this is not always the case. I went to Madura Island for several time. I only found good people. This make me think that maybe only those who live outside Madura are the one that make the bad stereotype.

Most of the land are dry land, it is a flat land with only few hills exist. During dry season, we rarely see green lush from the trees. Everything got dried, the land itself is not a fertile land. If tourists heard about the Island of Madura, they will surely not interested to visit the Island. They think that there is nothing good or interesting places to see in Madura. But they were wrong, There are actually more to see in Madura.

Kangean Islands

One thing that they did not know is that, Madura territory comprises not only one Island, it has more than 150 Islands which most of them are on the east side of Sumenep Regency. Say the Sapudi Island, Raas Island, and more to the east we can find Kangean Islands. Gili Labak is a newly well known island for the local travelers. It is a small Island two hours away from the Kalianget seaport in Sumenep. The Island has crystal clear water with white sand on the beach. It's a new paradise for the local travelers.

Gili Labak

 On the mainland they have the Toroan Waterfall, a unique waterfall where the water falls directly to the Java Sea. It's a mixture between a waterfall landscape and coastal landscape. At here we can also take a nice picture of ourselves with the Java Sea as background. Toroan Waterfall is on the north coast of Sampang Regency.

Toroan Waterfall

Sumenep Regency has long historical story dated back to the 14th century AD during Singasari Kingdom to The Great Majapahit Empire. It was one of special territory within the kindoms where the leader of the region was called Adipati, or Governor at present time. The most famous one was Adipati Arya Wiraraja, one that helped Raden Wijaya to establish the Kingdom of Majapahit. Once the Majapahit Empire collapsed, it became an independence small kingdom/state lead by the descendant of the Adipati. Here we can find historical remains such the Masjid Agung Sumenep or the Grand Mosque of Sumenep and the tombs of the kings. Sumenep also have the famous beach named Slopeng Beach that grows Beach She-Oak all over the place.

Bukit Kapur 2

On the west side of the Mainland, Bangkalan Regency, we can find two limestone hills namely Bukit Kapur and Bukit Jeddih. The first one is the left over limestone mine which created a magnificent structure of limestone caves. The second one is the limestone mine on the go, though the people is still mining the limestone bricks, the others make it as tourist destination. It even have blue colored lake, which was dug by the miners to get the limestone bricks.

Bukit Kapur 1

Not to mention the Mandangin Island on the south of Sampang Regency. Though the Island is already crowded by the people who lives on the north side, it still have pristine Tosca beach on the south with an Island extension called Batu Candi, that make it perfect to hunt Sunset. I went here twice though, and more visits to come.

So, there it is, more or less, that I can tell you about the beauty of Madura Island. I promised myself to discover more about the Island on the next trip, and tell you more about it in future. I hope this will inspire you to do the same exploration I did before, even more. 

Mandangin Island